Opinion Round-Up

There has been a lot of heated point-counterpoint in the major news outlets and the blogosphere over several different legal issues during the last two days.

First off, yesterday Senator Kennedy had this op-ed in the Washington Post simply titled “Roberts and Alito Misled Us.” Matthew Franck responds to the piece here at the blog Bench Memos, and Jonathan Adler has a reaction here at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Also in yesterday’s Post, Benjamin Wittes has an article arguing for changing the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominees; the article can be read here.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal and the ABA have been engaged in their own give-and-take. It began last week when the Journal published this editorial accusing the ABA of being ideologically biased in its evaluations of federal judicial nominees, stating that “it is past time to cut the ABA out of the vetting process all together.”

ABA president Michael Greco responded today in this letter to the editor arguing that last week’s editorial was “irresponsible” and “widely misses the mark.”

The Journal then replied to Greco’s letter, maintaining its claims that the ABA is fundamentally biased. In an editorial here, the Journal’s editorial board cites the recent ABA task force report critical of presidential signing statements as more evidence of the organization’s liberal bias.

In that editorial, one of the points that the Journal makes is that, “the ABA excluded [from the task force] such Democrats as former head of the Clinton Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel Walter Dellinger, who wrote a 1993 memo saying the President has an obligation to disregard unconstitutional laws.” Dellinger does voice his opinion on this issue, however, here in an op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Also on the editorial page of today’s Times is this op-ed called “The Insanity Defense Goes Back on Trial,” which discusses the status of the insanity defense in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Clark v. Arizona.